Dogfight (Alpha MC: The McKinnon Brothers Book 1) (2 page)

And now she had wasted that bikini-dropping move on someone unimportant. There were cameras everywhere. Frankie wouldn’t care that she had stripped naked in front of the hired help, but she should have used that move on Frankie himself, not on Connor McKinnon, a man who would be out of Frankie’s life in a matter of days. He couldn’t help her get closer to Frankie, which is what she needed.

He hadn’t frightened her. Well, maybe a little. The man was wolfish in his silence. But more so, it had been her reaction to him that startled her. Casey liked to think of herself impervious to basic human desires. She liked sex most of the time, but she could get more done in half the time with her vibrator and she didn’t have to cuddle or talk afterward. She didn’t get caught up in romance or get all breathless at the sight of a man.

Until Connor McKinnon stood towering over her, his perfect lips too close, his body making her feel small when she was not. And his eyes.  Gorgeous blue-green, unblinking intensity that shook her calm.

He had hummed with energy despite seeming at ease. And he smelled delicious. Rich coffee, cologne, gasoline, and something warm, something that was all his. It was an intoxicating scent, one she didn’t plan to be close enough to smell again.

She had a job to do and she couldn’t let girlish fantasies get in the way.

The door opened and Casey collected herself, throwing on a smile, popping out a hip, and sauntering up to Frankie. He kissed her neck, his hands running over her naked, still damp body.

Good, he was happy, which meant a quickie. The only time he took his time in bed was when he was angry, and usually he hurt her. Not much, but enough. She was good at taking control and making him think it was his idea.

It was quick. Frankie bent her over the end of the bed, pulled himself from his bathing suit, slapped on a condom, and pushed inside. She made the necessary noises, moaning, crying out, screaming during her fake orgasm, and he filled the condom inside her, his hips moving fast, his hands holding her still.

She smiled and purred for him afterward, sprawled on the bed as if she were a cat full of milk, completely content and satisfied, when all she wanted to do was go down to the garage and smack Connor McKinnon.

She needed him out of her head.

Frankie reached for her hand after he’d cleaned up. She let him take it and help her to her feet, his hands around her waist. She kissed his chin and neck as he spoke.

“I have to go away in a few days. Maybe you want to stay here? Or I can set you up in my condo in Boston. It’s right over the common, very pretty view.”

She pulled away and tried to play this cool. She pursed her lips. “Can’t I come with you?”

He shook his head. “Not this trip, baby.”

“What will you do for fun?” She rubbed herself against him.

His smile was tight, but she felt him getting hard again. “I’ll manage.”

He made to pull away, but she held on to his neck. “Please, Frankie. I’ll be so bored without you.”

“I’ll send someone to keep you busy.”

“But I want to be with you,” she whined just a little, holding onto him.

Frankie took her hands in his, applying enough pressure to her wrists to hurt. She masked her pain with a smile, as if she enjoyed this kind of foreplay.

His smile was gone. Maybe she had pushed too far. It was easy to do with Frankie. Last week she had watched him beat a man near to death with a belt. She had sat watching, masking her horror as best she could, while Frankie wrapped the belt around the man’s neck, pulled him close, and spoke, his eyes cold and dark.

“You lie, you die.”

Casey had shuddered as Victor dragged the man away screaming. When Frankie turned to her, all traces of anger were gone from his face, and he smiled, taking her in his arms, smearing her cotton dress with the man’s blood.

It was hard to tell what would set Frankie off, aside from lying to him.

But then his grip gentled and his face softened. Leaning forward, he kissed her nose.

“We’ll talk later.”

Before she could argue any more, he left.

Casey dropped her guard and slumped onto the bed.

“Damn it.”

She had to get invited. He wouldn’t keep her forever, and there were so many innocent lives at stake. She wondered vaguely, as she ran a bath, if Connor McKinnon had been invited, which reminded her, she needed to do a search on him.

Chapter Four

Casey tried a new tactic in the morning. If Frankie wouldn’t be swayed by her desire to be with him, she needed to make him desire her. This part was easy enough to attempt. Sex, sex, sex, and more sex. That always seemed the best way to get a man to do what she wanted.

So, early in the morning she climbed on top of him, dressed in skimpy lingerie, and woke him with sweet, slow sex. She had slipped a condom on, and he filled it quickly, smiling as he opened his eyes. Then she had run him a bath, performed a striptease while he bathed, and joined him, riding him hard enough to soak the entire tiled floor beneath them and half the carpeted part of the bedroom.

And yet, after breakfast when Frankie announced that he was going to look at some new stock, and Casey asked if she could join him, he smiled and cupped her chin.

“This isn’t the sort of thing for a woman.” He kissed the top of her head. “I won’t be back until dinner. I’ll have Arthur make you something Italian for lunch.”

She beamed at him.

“That’s a good girl.” He gave her chin a playful squeeze.

Victor followed Frankie out, a smirk on his thin lips. Casey kept the radiant smile on her face until they were gone, and then she glared at the fruit on her plate.

God damn it. Maybe she had chosen too compliant a persona, so now, when she needed to be a little more aggressive, doing that could blow her cover. She had to keep up this stupid, ditzy façade or else let Frankie find out she’d played him. That was not something she intended on doing. Facing Frankie’s wrath. No thanks.

Connor sipped his coffee, startling her. He leaned against the counter, black tee shirt pulled tight over a well-muscled chest, and jeans snug. His bright eyes raked up her bare legs and Frankie’s big, white dress shirt she’d thrown on.

She slapped a smile on her face, but too late. His expression was curious. His eyes unwavering as they assessed her.

“He’s quite concerned for your innocent little eyes.” Connor’s voice was calm and deep, like a lake. She looked away when his eyes found hers.

She sniffed and pushed a piece of cantaloupe around. There was no rule that said she had to be friendly toward the hired help. In fact, someone like Jenny Cartwright would probably go about her daily life as if meals made themselves, towels were magically hung back up, and custom built motorcycles appeared out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, Connor seemed determined to have a conversation.

“I get what Frankie sees in you.” His eyes took in every part of her, exposed and covered. Was this a poor way of complimenting her? “Quiet and pretty, at his beck and call. You’re exactly what he would like.” Not a compliment. “But, Frankie don’t seem like your type.” He eyed her over his coffee mug.

She cocked an eyebrow, her curiosity getting the better of her. “How would you know what my type is?”

He shrugged. “I have a gift.”

Connor had a gift all right, the gift of annoyance. Casey sighed hard through her nose. If he was going to be mysterious, so was she.

She needed a reason to leave the kitchen. There were other things she could be doing, but Connor didn’t need to know about them.

Casey swung her hair dramatically over her shoulder, prepared to make a show of leaving. But Connor’s words stopped her.

“What is it, his good looks? His money? The conversational skills?” His eyes glittered.

She met those eyes and glared.

If she said it was Frankie’s looks, Connor would say she was shallow. If she said the money, he would think she was a gold digger. And they both knew he lacked any sort of conversational skills. The man was a complete bore to talk to. It would make sense for Jenny Cartwright to be with him for his money. And she was just as boring, but Casey played it that way on purpose. To say it was his looks was the least damning, and Frankie wasn’t a bad looking man by any means, but Casey Keene would not be with someone solely based on looks.

She shouldn’t care what Connor thought, but she wasn’t shallow or a gold digger, and choosing either of those things would only add unnecessary lies on top of the ones she was already keeping track of.

Casey met Connor’s gaze with as much fire as she could put into a look, her stomach doing a little flip at the intensity in his. “It’s the sex,” she said. Let’s see him turn that around on her.

He cocked an eyebrow. “That good, huh?”

“The best.”

“Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

A moment of glaring at him didn’t shake that smirk from his face, and honestly he was better at keeping eye contact, so she snapped her chin up. “And how would you know I’m lying? Slept with Frankie lately?”

He grinned, and she wanted to punch that pretty mouth of his. “Would that make you jealous?”

“Hardly.”

“Thought he was the best lay you ever had.”

“He can sleep with anyone he wants.”

“Why do you want to go to his farm so badly?”

“What?” Her cheeks warmed. She glanced at the door; afraid Frankie might come back and overhear them. It was supposed to look like she wanted to be with Frankie, not get to his farm.

“You know what he does up there, don’t you?”

She narrowed her eyes, her voice low. “Do you?”

He nodded, his voice also low. “Not really the kind of place for someone as delicate as you.”

“I’m not delicate,” she said, affronted.

He stared hard into her eyes, making her uncomfortable. “Aren’t you?”

Her cheeks got hot. Shit. She was supposed to be delicate and girly and sexy. The kind of woman who would lounge by the pool all day and then let Frankie have his way with her whenever he pleased. She was not supposed to be the kind to stick her nose in his business, which was actually the kind of woman she really was.

She couldn’t think of anything to say, and when she decided
fuck you
would suffice, Connor got up and left the kitchen.

Well good.
Fuck you
wasn’t the sort of thing Jenny Cartwright would say anyway.

Casey chewed the tip of her nail and then mentally slapped herself. Jenny didn’t do that either.

Why was she letting that man get to her? She’d done this sort of job four times in the past and she had never before been so thrown by anyone.

Granted, no one had ever managed to throw her off her game by simply being near her. Why did he have to stare like that? Didn’t he know that it was impolite?

She headed upstairs to grab her handheld. She needed to run a search on the annoying bike builder. There had to be a way to get rid of Connor sooner and get her ass invited to the farm. If those things didn’t happen this week, she was going to tail Frankie’s car and follow him to the damn farm.

And Connor McKinnon could go fuck himself.

Chapter Five

He needed information, details about who Jenny Cartwright was. She played the part well, but he saw through it. She wasn’t the delicate flower she wanted everyone to believe she was. Why? Why was she acting? What was she after? Would it interfere with his job?

If the answer to the last one was yes, then he needed to stop her, fast.

He had a week to get Frankie to bring him along to his farm, which seemed to be Jenny’s goal as well. Connor could have completed his job here at Frankie’s Cambridge house, but the alphas preferred absolute certainty before execution. So far, all Connor had was word of Frankie’s operations, not physical proof.

And for that, he needed to get to the farm.

Connor went into the garage and cranked the radio. Rock and roll blasted through the space. He had done a sweep this morning and knew where all of the cameras were, and which ones had audio. There were two in the garage. Both recorded sound, which was why he had been blaring loud music anytime he went in to work on the bike, so that when he needed to make a phone call, it wouldn’t look suspicious. The kitchen was where Frankie had a lot of meetings, meaning it had no audio and the camera only recorded the door, so it seemed safe to interrogate Miss Cartwright in there.

Sitting by the bike, at an angle so that the cameras could see only his back, Connor dialed and held the phone to his ear, out of view. It rang once.

“McKinnon.” Aidan’s voice came through, lost under the music, but Connor could hear him.

“Need your tech skills, brother.” Connor tinkered with the bike, making sure to barely move his lips, just in case.

“The alphas want to know how close your job is to complete. They’re getting antsy.”

“Just antsy? Maybe I should take more time.”